


Fondness Makes the Absence Longer

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jack tries to help, M/M, Rhys gets injured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 01:59:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13824093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: Following an accident with a shock pistol prototype, Rhys loses use of his eye and his cybernetic arm entirely.Jack, who's only known Rhys as the half-man, half computer he'd fallen in love with, tries his best to adjust as Rhys struggles through the trials of recovery.





	Fondness Makes the Absence Longer

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to write some hurt/comfort and I enjoy fics where Rhys incurs damage to his cybernetics! Enjoy it!

Rhys was far too stubborn for his own good.

Jack was sure that, given the chance, Rhys would say the same thing about him. They were really quite the pair, they were, each unwilling to let go of their own respective egos even if it meant risking the welfare of their relationship—or their bodies and minds for that matter.

So when Jack had teased Rhys about his inability to handle a weapon during a tour of the prototype testing range, he should have anticipated the outcome, and to a degree he did—he knew Rhys would pout and complain and cross his arms like he did when Jack pushed him a little too far—but he hadn’t quite expected Rhys to go  _further_ , to take a new shock pistol from the hands of one of the testers and march towards the range with an angry glare of determination in his eyes.

In retrospect, Jack regretted letting Rhys go through with it, but at the time he’d found it funny—part of him even interested to see if Rhys could defy expectations and pull off a proper shot. So he’d stood off behind the plexiglass barrier, arms crossed and eyebrows cocked in amusement.

Which gave him a perfect view of the moment the pistol  _exploded_  in Rhys’ hand.

Once the flash of electricity had finished burning into Jack’s retinas he raced to his boyfriend’s side just as Rhys hit the ground, kicked back and left jittering from the burst. Jack skidded to his knees, Rhys’ name already hoarse in his throat as his hands wavered over his boyfriend’s body, unsure where to touch or if he even  _should_. Rhys’ eyes were wide open but his ECHO lay flat and static. Foul-smelling smoke filled Jack’s nose, and his panic he could hardly tell whether it was mechanical or organic in origin.

Shock damage was deadly enough to people who  _weren’t_  half metal, and considering Rhys’ cyborg status Jack justified the angry roars and threats he hailed upon the medical team as they desperately tried to stabilize Rhys’ heart rate enough to properly move him. He had half the mind to strangle the entire development team with his bare hands, but with Rhys quickly ushered out of the department on a gurney, he had little time for anything but a couple threats and mimed acts of violence.

That would have to do for now.

* * *

The medical bay smelled. The scent of antiseptic nearly scorched his nostrils as he raced behind the first responders. Usually, Jack detested it, but this time it was almost welcome—it distracted from the lingering, burnt ozone that steamed off of Rhys’ body, drifting behind him as his gurney was skated down the hallway towards the emergency room.

Thankfully, Rhys’ heart rate kept steady as he was plugged into the sleek machines lining the bed. Jack watched grimly over the shoulders of the doctors—no one dared asked him to leave—as Rhys’ singed shirt and vest were cut off his body, showing off the extent of the damage to his skin. Forked patterns of burns cut angry and bubbling and red over formerly pristine skin, blistering nude and tattooed flesh alike. Rhys’ lips were bright red, his teeth stained with blood, like he’d bitten right through.

In the end, Jack torn his eyes away not thanks to any interference on part of the medical team, but because he couldn’t bear to look at Rhys’ burnt, limp body a moment longer. He let himself be lead away to the waiting room, where any patients were sure to give him a wide berth.

Jack knew Rhys would live, deep down. Jack believed in the power he held over everyone on Helios, the constant threat of death hanging over the necks of anyone who might disappoint him ensuring the medical team would push themselves to the brink of their human limits before letting Rhys die.

But even the knowledge, the confidence in himself and his mystique, couldn’t quell the anxious doubt curling sick and heavy in his stomach as he sat in the chair in the waiting room, fingers tented between his knees as he stared straight ahead.

Just when the smell of smoking flesh had started to dissipate from his system the doctor emerged from the room Rhys’d been wheeled into. Jack appreciated her lack of cloying sympathy as she summoned him back through the door and to Rhys’ bed, where he yanked up a chair and assumed more or less the same position as he looked his boyfriend’s still form up and down before falling to rest on his shoulder.

They’d taken off his arm, leaving an empty socket Jack had never seen before. As far as he knew, Rhys wasn’t able to remove his cybernetics on his own. At least Jack had never witnessed them come off. He lifted his hand, wanting to touch, but after a moment’s thought on the indiscretion re-laces it back with his other hand. Most of the places he felt like stroking were covered with blankets or shrouded in bandages with the exception of Rhys’ face, but the skin there was so pale and fragile that he felt almost afraid to touch it.

* * *

The doctor said nothing when Jack started awake, a string of drool connecting his loose lips with the damp spot on the edge of Rhys’ bed as he sat up. He grunted and scrubbed his hand over his mouth, trying to recapture his menace as she rounded to the other side of the bed to check Rhys’ vitals. They pumped along steadily, beeping in time with the reedy rise and fall of Rhys’ chest.

He looked little better than he had when Jack had fallen asleep—whenever  _that_  had been, he couldn’t recall—but his cheeks at least had recouped their pinkish hue, general pallor far more lively. Jack breathed out a fraction of the tension in his chest, finally judging it safe enough to rest his hand against Rhys’ face.

“We’re lucky he was holding the weapon with his cybernetic,” the doctor murmured as Jack brushed his hand through Rhys’ hair, letting the strands fall soft against his forehead. “As much as it facilitated the electrical charge, it prevented major damage to his flesh hand that would have been far more difficult to repair.”

Jack got it. Better to fuse your robot arm together than blow your fingers apart. Good as Hyperion’s healing tech was, digits were notoriously tricky and Rhys would’ve probably never been the same.

_Small blessings._

“We can replace the cybernetic. The latest model has just gone through its final testing. It should be ready in a few weeks, just in time with his recovery, provided there are no complications.”

She showed him specs for the new arm on her tablet. Jack vaguely remembered signing off on the design a few months ago. It was far sleeker and slimmer than the fairly boxy model Rhys had been sporting up until a couple hours ago. Several moments since seeing the prototype for the first time he’d thought to bring the subject of swapping up to Rhys, but hadn’t done so just yet.

“Guess you were due for an upgrade anyway, huh babe?” Jack parted the hair off of Rhys’ forehead, missing the usual slicked back do. Rhys looked too boyish like this, too vulnerable. He pushed the hair up and back and brushed his lips just between Rhys’ brows.  

* * *

Rhys’ physical wounds healed quickly. It wasn’t the first time Jack had been grateful for Hyperion’s recent long strides in medical tech, and considering their twin track records, it probably wouldn’t be the last. Within the week Rhys had been approved for discharge—four days prior, he’d been able to sit up and take solid food and endure Jack’s atypically light ribbing about the accident. The blistering burns quickly faded into scars as the bandages came away less and less stained by each changing, and Jack’s hope for an rapid recovery within the following week back home stayed high.

However, physical wounds were the least of his and Rhys’ worries, as the crackling scars left by the electricity across his chest and collar disturbed Rhys far less than the absence of his arm.

It lingered, the most damaging impact of the accident as Rhys’ recovery trudged on. While the ECHOeye too had been injured, he could still use it for rudimentary sight once his subsystems had been reset. The arm served no comparable practical purpose in its complete absence.

The engineer who’d tended to Rhys’ fried system had made no bones about it when Rhys had asked—the arm was unsalvageable, already disposed of, and Rhys would have to wait until the new one could be properly approved for installation. And that surgery would have to wait until Rhys had completely recovered from his ordeal and—Jack had gotten the picture. They were going to have to wait awhile before Rhys was back up to one-hundred percent like he’d been before the accident.

Jack could wait, but that wasn’t the problem. He wasn’t the one suddenly without one of their limbs. He wasn’t the one quiet touching the empty stump when he thought no one else in the room was looking with a distant look of pain far beyond the healing burns on his face.

Jack had never asked the exact nature of the arm, and aside from a brief paragraph in Rhys’ employee file and the attached medical records, he knew very little about the process that’d been involved inobtainingit. It must have been a bit of a hell, considering the hack-job cybernetics Jack had seen on mercenaries and hired hands, but he didn’t  _know_.

And not knowing bugged him, especially when Rhys was unhappy.

* * *

The first day back home was routine enough. Rhys spent most of it laying in bed, still drained from his stay in the hospital. Jack spent most of his time pacing, running a circuit that started at the edge of Rhys’ bed, where he would brush his hand against his forehead or hover above the bandaged stump, and gradually progressed through the living room and into the kitchen for a beer or a snack or something to cook.

Jack had lately taken to poaching eggs when he was stressed. Which was well and good when Rhys was awake and hungry and prepared to help Jack demolish a plate of wiggly little morsels, but as it was Jack threw them in a container in the fridge where they would undeniably get rubbery and disappointing before Rhys was awake enough to taste them. Then it was back through the living room—maybe with a stop to see if any good programs were on—and again into the bedroom where he perched against Rhys’ bed and went right back to watching like nothing had happened.

The first day back was boring. But Jack almost missed the quiet when Rhys started to insist he could walk and go about the space station by himself.

The first fight had come when Jack had vetoed Rhys desire to go down to the Hub to stretch his legs and introduced the ultimatum he’d been stewing on since bringing him back—Rhys wasn’t to leave the house until the engineers finished the new arm and reattached it back on his body.

Rhys had fumed. He’d put on his best angry pout and shouted at Jack as much as his ragged throat could manage. Jack understood the kid’s frustrations—big as his penthouse was, it couldn’t compete with the endless square mileage Helios offered—but seeing Rhys already struggling, being down one arm, made him nervous. He wasn’t about to trust the kid’s welfare to the cutthroat masses always bidding for a means to rise to the top. They could smell vulnerability in the water like blood and viciously fed upon rumors. Jack felt justified exercising a little excessive vigilance.

Rhys, clearly, felt different. But Jack was adamant. What’s more, Rhys couldn’t go anywhere with Jack’s fingerprints all over the entrance door’s security coding. And—it felt cruel to say—but Rhys couldn’t exactly circumvent those without his eye or arm.

It  _was_  cruel. And Rhys’ eyes had narrowed and he’d spat in anger at Jack before whirling off to their bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him so violently that one of Jack’s portraits nearly shook off its nail. When Jack had slipped into the room later on—ostensibly to use the main bathroom—he’d seen a Rhys-sized lump of comforters on the bed, shaking occasionally with a groan of emotion too muffled to pinpoint.

Rhys spent the next couple of days in much the same state. When he wasn’t curled in bed, the heaviness of his steps echoed his annoyance as he tramped about the penthouse, trying to find something to distract himself from the boredom of being cooped up. Jack stayed mostly out of his way with limited success—sometimes literally. Rhys walked strange without his arm, moving in a winding path rather than walking a straight line, and often bumped into Jack with an affronted hiss. Rhys would stiffen as Jack tried to grab him and steady him, pushing the man with his left hand and moving on his way with a grumble.

The atmosphere inside the penthouse tensed whenever he and Rhys occupied the same space, even as Jack fervently tried to ignore it. Despite his best efforts, though, everything came to a head on the third day, when Rhys tried to grab a glass while shifting a plate laden with leftover pasta and chopped egg, again forgetting he was down one hand.

A moment later, the young man’s angry screech cut through the shattering of the plate.  

“God fucking  _damn it!_ ”

Both noises had Jack jolting up from the couch where he’d sat down to get out of Rhys’ way as the young man struggled to prepare lunch, though he paused in the doorway when he saw the marinara sauce and noodles sprayed out over the floor like a murder scene.

Rhys slammed the empty glass down on the counter so hard Jack swore it cracked before sliding his fingers into his hair and tugging it in frustration.

“This is so  _stupid_!” He cried as his tailbone bumped into the cabinets, back sliding down until he was curled up in a little ball stewing on the floor.

Jack sighed, stepping over the shattered plate and splattered food until he got to Rhys’ side. He crouched down next to his boyfriend only for Rhys to curl in on himself further, the action slightly hampered by his long legs.

“Hey,” Jack whispered, rubbing Rhys’ knee, “accidents happen, kiddo.”

He heard a tight puff of air blow from inside the little ball, followed by a tired, grim chuckle. Jack kept rubbing Rhys’ knee, trailing down his calf and back up, until he finally tilted up his head. Rhys’ face was ruddy and twitching, just barely able to hold back the tears swimming in his eyes. He growled and scrubbed his hand over his eyes, looking glumly down between his legs at his bare feet.

“It’s  _stupid_. I can’t believe I forgot. What kind of person forgets they don’t actually have an arm?”

“Maybe the kind of guy who’s been using a prosthetic for more than a few years now? You’re gonna have to cut yourself a little slack here, sweetheart.”

Rhys snorted, as if the idea was ridiculous. Jack frowned, patting his shin to get him to budge even as he rooted in reproach.

“C’mon. The floor can’t be too comfortable. And Dr. Nova will get all pissy at me if she knows I’m letting her precious patient sit on the floor and not in bed like he’s supposed to be.”

Rhys propped his chin up against his knee, a tired sigh whistling between his teeth. He stayed put.

“You won’t let me just curl up and be mad at myself, huh?”

“Nope.” Jack popped the word on his tongue as he brought his face close to Rhys’ own, the kid’s expression screwed up and puzzled.

“Aren’t  _you_? It’s my fault I lost my arm in the first place and have to sit around here bugging the fuck out of you.”

“Watch the language,” Jack murmured placidlyas he brushed Rhys’ hair out of his eyes and back over his head. It tumbled without the help of the gel, cascading sideways. Still kind of cute, though. “Why do you think I’m mad at you?”

“I…” Rhys frowned at himself. “I just figured…”

“I mean you’ve been kind of a brat the past few days, yeah. But I’m not gonna act like I don’t know why.”

Jack saw Rhys’ fingers, formerly tucked close to his ribs, drift up to brush against the empty socket just barely visible below his shirt sleeve.

“There’s just something about having a badass robot arm that makes you think you’re invincible…” Rhys sniffed, fiddling with his sleeve.

“You know the whole explosion thing was one-hundred percent the dev team’s fault, right?C’mon. It’s not like you knew it would blow up.”

“Honestly, I was thinking totally missing and having you never let me live it down would be the worst case scenario,” Rhys chuckled, nuzzling his nose against his knees. “I didn’t think the damn thing would explode.”

“I don’t think either of us expected that.” Jack joined him in the weak chuckle. “Not even the dev team. Pretty sure they thought I was gonna kill them.”

“Didn’t you?”

Jack paused a moment in thought.

“You know…I don’t think I’ve gotten around to that.” He swirled his finger in the air. “It’s on my list.”

Rhys’ shoulders relaxed, earlier frustration and anger unwound slightly from his crouched form. Encouraged, Jack rubbed his hand down to the back of Rhys’ neck, where it stayed. His thumb softly rubbed the tendon that stuck out of Rhys’ throat as he swallowed.

“C’mon. Let’s get you into bed, ‘kay?”

Rhys snuffled.

“I don’t think I really  _deserve_  the bed.”

Jack put his other hand on his hips in faux resignation.

“ _Hmmph_. Well, then I’m guess I’m just gonna have to drag you on over there.”

“What—?” Rhys started just as Jack wormed his arms around Rhys’ waist and hoisted him up, gravity quickly forcing him to untangle his legs as Jack grunted and squatted and rose to his full height. Rhys gasped, kicking out awkwardly in reflex, though Jack held firm.

“Wow,” Jack hummed as he righted Rhys in front of him, holding the young man a couple of inches off the ground, “without that arm you’re….you’re  _real_  light.” It hadn’t even occurred to Jack that the arm contributed any meaningful amount of bulk to Rhys’ frame, but he couldn’t look past the fact that previously he’d barely been able to budge his boyfriend off his feet. His own shoulders twinged with sympathy.

Rhys squirmed, hands braced against the arms wrapped tightly about his waist. His stomach quivered in a contained giggle as Jack’s fingers brushed up against his sides.

“Can you  _not_ , please? Let me down!”

“Easy, I was just getting to that.” Jack lowered Rhys slightly, shifting him as he felt his toes brush against the top of his shoes, before settling Rhys’ weight completely atop his feet. Jack kept one arm about Rhys’ waist, holding him steady as he stuck his other arm straight out in front of him, tricep brushing over the mechanical stump of Rhys’ shoulder.

“From now on I’m gonna be your new arm. At least until you get the fancy new replacement. Then you won’t feel so weird about only having one,  _hm_?”

Rhys raised his brow, eyes following from where Jack’s arm sprouted from his shoulder, down to the fingers that wiggled in question. It was less than seamless.

“I…I’m not sure this’ll work out too well.”

“Are you kidding? Just say the word, kitten, and it’ll do whatever you want.” Jack moved his hand more, alternately waving his palm and waggling his fingers and clenching his fist, to demonstrate his substitute dexterity.

“Anything you need, and I’ll take care of it. Gotta brush your teeth? Check. Need to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time? You’ll be covered.”

He faked grabbing at Rhys’ pants, jerking his hand in a lewd fashion.  

“Jack you off? I got it.”

“You can jerk me off when you’re  _not_  glued to my side, you know?”

“Sure. Sure. But wouldn’t it just a  _little_  more fun this way?”

“What, with you treating me like some weird half-puppet?”

Jack squeezed his arm affectionately about Rhys’ waist.

“With me all close and hugging up on you and all.”

He caught the bit of blush on Rhys’ cheeks with a quick kiss. A little laughter puffed through Rhys’ nose even as he tried to resist with a closed pout.

“Yeah.”

They stood together, Rhys balancing lightly atop Jack’s feet as he kept his arm wrapped close around his lover’s body. It occurred to Jack that he hadn’t held Rhys in quite the same way since long before the accident. The position was one of his favorites—even without Rhys standing on his toes, he usually edged Jack out an inch or so in height, which made it all the more fun to hold him from behind as he stretched his neck to rest his chin against Rhys’ shoulder. Social convention might dictate the shorter one down to the little spoon level, but Jack knew better. He knew Rhys liked being held.

Jack suddenly felt his boyfriend’s stomach gurgle against his forearm. He chuckled and patted Rhys’ middle as he made a face.

“Aw, crap. Here I am about to lug you off to bed when you’re still  _starving_.” Jack eyed Rhys’ lunch, still splattered all over the floor. “Not to mention I gotta clean up the mess you made.”

Rhys turned his head and opened his mouth to protest, only for Jack to quiet him with another quick kiss as he picked him up, carting him over the mess and hobbling towards the bedroom.

“I can help—“ Rhys started as Jack plopped him onto the bed and tugged the blankets over his shoulders. Jack planted his hands between Rhys’ legs and leaned in close, brushing their noses together in a soft nuzzle.

“Think you’ve done enough ‘helping’ for today, huh?” Jack winked as he pulled away, leaving a scant space between them that Rhys quickly closed to initiate a kiss of his own.

“You’re a jerk,” Rhys whispered against his lips, before retreating back into his blanket cocoon. He pulled it less tight about his body than before, amused eyes watching Jack as he went.

“That’s not something you should say to your right-hand man— _heh_ , ‘right-hand man’ Rhys, get it?”

A pillow thrown against the closing door was Jack’s answer.


End file.
